Tag: Fabric London

Last year Mumdance delivered one of the best and most exciting mixes of the year when he turned in his contribution to the celebrated FabricLive mix series. As producers Mumdance and Logos sit as pioneers of what they term the Weightless genre. Think part instrumental My Bloody Valentine noise, grime 2.0 beats and old school jungle reference points and you are getting close. Part of their vision is the record label Different Circles. And it is from releases on this label that Mumdance and Logos have compiled this new mix album.

Some of the tracks, which appear here will be familiar to those who listened to last year’s pioneering FabricLive mix, however, there are plenty of new cuts to keep the audience happy. To say the sound of the tracks on the record is like nothing else, even when they have been heard before, is an under exaggeration. This mix sounds otherworldly. At points ethereal but also dark and aggressive much of the sound presented feels like a logical experimental step for the sort of instrumentals Wiley was cooking up around 2003.

Despite its very experimental sound the Weightless genre has caught the imaginations of many grime producers several of whom are represented here including Rabit and Boxed frequenter Sharp Veins. However, many of the tracks are plucked from the back-catalogues of Mumdance and Logos themselves. Though a lack of diversity might exist it isn’t a problem when your productions sound as alien as these.

Different Circles is a short mix which flies by far too quickly and unlike last year’s FabricLive mix there is no exploration of wider genres or of sounds, which may have influenced Mumdance and Logos. However, as everything here sounds so fresh, exciting and experimental the negatives don’t have much of an impact. Different Circles is a great mix for fans of experimental music, lovers of last year’s FabricLive mix and a great stepping stone for those wishing to explore the Weightless genre.

Not officially released till March 18th however I have been fortunate through a Fabric membership to get my mucky paws on this release a week early. The Fabric series has been through some slow times at the start of this year with a mundane mix from Jesse Rose released as part of the Fabriclive series. That said with brillaint mixes by Mumdance, Dub Phizix and Joris Voorn 2015 was always going to be a hard year to follow. However things start to hot up a bit with this addition to the series by My Neu Leng.

My Neu Leng specialise in what could loosely and awfully be termed bass music. That is they take a wide selection of hard hitting bass bangers and turn them into something that could set any roof on fire. Fabriclive 86 sees them cover many basses (pun intended) including bassline, grime, house, jungle, drum and bass and UK Garage.

The duo adopt a rapid fire style to their mixing perhaps influenced by the DJs they would have grown up with such as DJ EZ and DJ Q and cover some 30 tracks in 80mins. And each track is a bass based beauty.

The mix is most thrilling when the tunes hark back to bassline house, a UK genre which excited and thrilled but was all too short lived especially in the South of the country. These tracks serve as a reminder of the potential and excitement of the genre and what could have been if it had not been marred by violence, police raids and drug problems.

Elsewhere My Neu Leng slot in icy synth led grime and several tracks which hark back to early jungle and UK Garage . There is enough of an influence from the early nineties UK rave scene to say that many of those who were there first time around would take some enjoyment from this set.

With a mix of this standard My Neu Leng’s growing stock will only rise faster and as for Fabric it’s good to have the mix series back on form. Listen below for a preview of the Fabric mix.